BASKETBALL

BASKETBALL;Pitino Has Won it All; Now About Next Year

By MALCOLM MORAN

Published: April 3, 1996

The spin doctor was telling a story on himself. Rick Pitino can do that now that the grass is bluer in Kentucky, now that the painstaking restoration of a championship tradition has been completed. Ultimately, the demands throughout the Commonwealth will not change. Each year, around this time, there are two conclusions to a Kentucky season. There is the satisfaction of a championship, and there is what-went-wrong explanation.

On Monday night, Kentucky's first championship night in 18 years, Pitino thought back to the unfulfilling end to last season. His team lost a regional final to North Carolina, a step short of the Final Four. Poor shot selection was a decisive factor. Kentucky's tournament performance under Pitino had appeared to reach a plateau. The coach, starting with his wife, Joanne, tried to encourage everyone around him.

I told every family member, 'I don't know why you're looking at it so negatively; don't you think it would be a lot better to win it in New Jersey, where we're all from?' " Pitino remembered. "And she said, 'You really believe that?' And I said: 'Without question. We're going to win it.'

"Did I believe it?" Pitino went on, without waiting for the question to be asked. "Absolutely not, but I said it to make them feel better."

And maybe himself, too. The harsh criticism of March had begun to define Pitino as an architect that could only take the job so far. He had reconstructed a probation-ridden program, one known more for the disgrace of its excesses than anything else. There were eight scholarship players on the Kentucky roster in the 1989-90 season, none taller than 6 feet 7 inches.

That first team built a record of 14-14 around the 3-point shot. Two years later, the Unforgettables won 29 games but captured more hearts in a defeat -- the brilliantly played, crushing overtime loss to Duke that kept Kentucky out of the Final Four. In 1993, the Wildcats lost in overtime to Michigan in the national semifinals.

The oppressive expectations were born in another world, before many state universities took the sport seriously and before scholarship limitations balanced the talent pool. Three of Kentucky's six championships were won before Pitino was born in 1952.

But now that the Wildcats have regained their position at the top of recruiting lists, the possibilities seem endless. On Monday night, with the sweat on the Wildcats not even dry, the Kentucky fans at Continental Arena were chanting, "Back to back! Back to back!"

Ron Mercer, a 6-7 freshman who scored 20 points in the championship game victory, remembered the options he considered. "Out of the choice of other schools I had on the list, Kentucky was the only one who really had a chance in the next two years to compete for the national championship," he said, "so I figured I could go in and learn from the seniors. They already had stars there, once I got here. It was a great opportunity for me to grow slowly and learn."

All this, and now a ring.

"I think I made a good choice," Mercer said.

The underclassmen could follow the lead of an unselfish senior class. Tony Delk endured a brief and ineffective transition to point guard, but politely avoided making any complaints about the shifting when it was brought up, over and over, during the tournament.

Walter McCarty, a senior forward whose tipped offensive rebound and two consecutive assists provided a cushion when the Kentucky lead was down to 2 points, was a resourceful leader by example.

Kentucky's willingness to sublimate its young egos was essential to its success. The combination will change considerably over the summer. Egos grow, too. "Guys have got upset," Antoine Walker, a gifted 6-8 sophomore, said the day before the championship game. "It's nothing major. What's so good about it is nobody really brings it out. Everybody keeps it behind closed doors. The main thing we need is to win it all. Then everybody will be happy in the end."

The younger egos will be one year more fully inflated, after a summer's worth of hearing how great they have been. (See U.C.L.A., summer of 1995.) The younger veterans will also be one year closer to possible professional careers, and the need to establish credentials will be more urgent.

Before the Wildcats carried their celebration out of the arena, the coach's conversation had already turned to recruiting. "If you know of a good, quick, 6-11 guy, I would love to have that guy," Pitino said. "That's the missing link for next season for us."

In the stands and in the coach's mind, next season sounded as if it was starting already.

Photos: Kentucky Coach Rick Pitino savoring the moment with his playersafter the Wildcats beat Syracuse, 76-67, in the N.C.A.A. final on Monday night. (G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times); John Wallace of Syracuse, who had 29 points and 10 rebounds against Kentucky on Monday night at the Meadowlands, absorbing the defeat. (Barton Silverman/The New York Times)